Time and Entropy
by Quatermass
Summary: Homura Akemi's time loop has attracted the attention of the powerful. Spread too thin, they send an operative with experience of the Incubators and their methods: Moni, one of the last of a species who was wiped out by the Incubators' malice, and who is running from a dark past of his own. Can Homura and Moni work together to stop not only the Incubators, but other threats?
1. Foreword

**FOREWORD**

I am, first and foremost, a _Doctor Who_ fan. But I have interests outside this fandom. And one of my interests of recent years is the dark and thoughtful magical girl anime series _Puella Magi Madoka Magica_. But when I looked at the fanfics on , I found myself disappointed, for one of the key concepts in the series _Puella Magi Madoka Magica_ was also a key concept in one particular _Doctor Who_ story.

I am speaking, of course, about _Logopolis_.

For fans of the new series who are yet to dip a toe into the classic series, and for fans of _Puella Magi Madoka Magica_ who are nonetheless curious about this connection, I suggest you look it up. Be warned, though. It may spoil you to one of the most epic departure stories for a Doctor. The latter will doubtless know why I made the connection between _Logopolis_ and _Puella Magi Madoka Magica_.

In any case, the possible connection was too great a draw for me as an author, and while in many regards this is a Peggy Sue, trying to fix things, it is also an intriguing look not only into the true nature of the Magical Girls and their abilities, but also of Kyubey and its kind, as well as those who may oppose them.

Before we embark, some things I should point out. Although this is a crossover with _Doctor Who_, this is still primarily a _Puella Magi Madoka Magica_ story, and the elements from the Whoniverse won't become clearer until later. The Doctor won't be involved initially, at least not until later in the story. As for a setting, Who fans would like to know that this is set later on in the Eighth Doctor's life, between the first two _Dark Eyes_ audio drama anthologies.

Secondly, I will be making annotations as I go.

Thirdly, this was one of my first fanfics. It may be a bit rough at first.

Fourthly, all rights belong to their respective owners. Please support the official release.

Fifthly, here be spoilers for _Puella Magi Madoka Magica_ and _Doctor Who_. You have been warned.


	2. Chapter 1: From Night to Twilight

**CHAPTER 1:**

**FROM NIGHT TO TWILIGHT**

It could have been a vision of Hell.

A monochrome landscape under a monochrome sky, as if the vast…_thing_ (for there were few other ways to describe it) was sucking the colour out of the world. From the ground, it looked like some bizarre, vast bird, silhouetted in black against the bleached white sky. But some details didn't make sense. Gears, like malevolent clockwork, turned and churned somewhere on the figure. Part of it looked very vaguely humanoid.

Whatever it was, it radiated power, consuming joy and life and colour from the world. Broken skyscrapers and other debris orbited around it lazily, twisted planets paying homage to a malevolent deity. The landscape below was twisted and warped beyond measure.

Many watched in various states of terror. But of concern to this narrative were four participants.

A girl of fourteen with pink hair, staring in horror at the sight…and of what was happening to another girl of fourteen, who was confronting the entity.

Said girl, with long dark hair, bore a shield, and dodged and launched attacks with what was clearly supernatural skill and abilities. But even she clearly could not stand against the assault forever, and she fell as one attack too many from the entity above struck home.

Next to the pink-haired girl was a creature that could be called feline, if one had bad eyesight. It had red eyes, an almost perpetual serene smile on its face, and what seemed like two sets of ears, one long, the other pair short. And despite its virtually impassive face, it was conversing with the pink-haired girl.

But what of the fourth participant? Ah, there it is. Dressed in a black cloak, red eyes glinting beneath the hood of the cloak. Observing what is going on, before it swoops down on the dark-haired teenager, looking the very figure of the Grim Reaper, come to claim another soul…

* * *

"**_DON'T DO IT, MADOKAAA!_**"

She couldn't hear her, of course. Even with all her powers, Homura Akemi could not make Madoka hear her. Not at this distance. Not with Walpurgis Nacht(1) and its damnable powers and the howling wind. But she knew that Madoka was being tempted by Kyubey into the deal that would damn her.

Just like it had damned Homura.

Her body slipped off the structure she had landed on, and began to fall. She wouldn't feel much pain, but it wasn't good. She had reached her limits once more. She'd have to turn back time, just like she had so many times before, and…

She landed, hard. The breath was driven from her, an explosion of pain bloomed within her body. It had happened just like it had happened before. There were variations. Sometimes, Madoka would just die. Other times, she would suffer an even worse fate: transformation into a Witch. The curse of the Magical Girl. Death, or becoming a Destroyer. A curse that Homura had averted for herself time and time again, but she couldn't prevent Madoka from falling. Or anyone else. But only Madoka mattered. Only she had cared.

"Hmm. So you're one of the Axes," a voice mused quietly, nearly lost over the howling storm.

Homura opened her eyes, squeezed shut from pain both physical and mental, to find a strange figure standing over her. Dark, cloaked, and only a pair of red eyes could be seen glinting in the darkness. _What?_ she thought, startled, to herself. _This hasn't happened before!_

"And the other…" the figure continued, looking thoughtfully…no. _They were looking at Madoka!_

"Now I see…" the figure murmured. It was impossible to tell whether it was a man or a woman. The voice was a bit androgynous, and the figure was slender underneath the robes, as far as she could tell. It then turned to regard Homura thoughtfully. "You'd better use it."

"What?"

"Either you or the girl over there is responsible for a chronic hysteresis," the figure said. "What you are doing is appallingly dangerous."

_Don't I know it_, Homura thought, before more angry thoughts chased them away. She struggled to her feet, and summoned her bow and arrow, aiming it at the figure.

"Don't threaten me, Magical Girl," the figure growled. Then it stretched out a hand. Homura felt something like the usual sensation she got when she sensed the energies of a Magical Girl being used. Except…there was something very different.

The weapon the figure had summoned was a sword, gleaming, elegant, and deadly. And it was then swung around to her throat. "Use it."

"What?"

"Whatever you use for the chronic hysteresis, Magical Girl! Use it now! This needs to end!"

Homura glared coldly at the figure. "It will end. But you don't tell me how to end it," she stated as she activated her power, and…

* * *

She was back in hospital. Again. Staring at what was once an unfamiliar ceiling. Again.

There was a saying in English. Familiarity breeds contempt. That was certainly true of Homura Akemi and this now too-familiar ceiling.

Had she imagined the figure? Or had she managed to leave them behind in that hellhole Walpurgis Nacht(1) was making of the world?

A groan from the floor at the foot of the bed suggested otherwise.

"Ugh, that's worse than a bloody Time Ring," the figure complained, scrambling to their feet. They paused, briefly, looking at the clipboard with her details at the foot of the bed. "Homura Akemi," they said, enunciating each syllable carefully.

Homura summoned her bow and arrow once more. "Stay where you are," she said.

This time, unlike the last time, the figure put their hands up. "Crap," they muttered. "That's what I get for panicking and going into 'portentous mode'. Trey's not gonna like this."

"Who is 'Trey(2)'? Who are you?"

"Well, put the bow and arrow away, and we can talk about that."

"No."

The figure sighed. "Oh well, worth a shot. BTC: Disarm."

Suddenly, the bow and arrow she was holding in her hands dissolved into cubical particles, before disappearing completely into motes of light. Homura gaped, surprised for the first time in a very long time. Before she could react any further, the figure flung back the hood.

Homura could have expected, if she had any expectations left, any number of hideous sights. Sights that would probably not have fazed her, admittedly, given what she had seen time and time again. But she wasn't expecting a teenaged boy.

He was perhaps her age, give or take. Rather thin, and she might have thought sickly pale, if it weren't for the fact that he had pure white hair, and red eyes. His face was long and thin and lugubrious, currently creased in an expression of worry and anxiety. He could have been European, an albino European, but something about him gave her pause. And those red eyes…

As he opened his mouth to say something, Homura asked the question pertinent to her mind. Not the fact that he had managed to disable her weapon, or that he had somehow managed to get dragged back to the beginning of the loop with her. "Are you with the Incubators?" she growled.

His eyes widened, and he waved his hands at her like a panicked chicken flapping its wings. "No! No, no, no…I saw one of them, though, with the pink-haired girl. Doubtless trying to get her to sign their little deal." He scratched his nose pensively, and Homura, while her suspicions were still there, was at least willing to talk. She couldn't help but notice the sneer that twitched at his lips when he spoke of 'their little deal'.

He blinked, realising something. "How did you know I wasn't human?"

"I guessed. I thought your eyes looked like the Incubators."

"Oh. Well, there are plenty of red-eyed beings in the cosmos, doesn't make them evil," he said, all but babbling. He turned his back for a moment. He then rounded on her suddenly, a determined look in his eyes. "Still a good question to ask when dealing with the Incubators, though. They're tricky little bastards."

_And he has a mouth almost as foul as Kyoko_, Homura reflected. "Who are you, then, if not with the Incubators?"

"Umm, my name is Moni. And, well, you could say that I'm part of a group that opposes the Incubators and their plans."

Moni? Weird name. But what was that he had just said? That he was part of a group that opposed the Incubators? How come they hadn't come to help here before?

She realised that he was standing next to her, his hand open. "Please, Homura. May I have your Soul Gem?"

"Why?" she asked, immediately, and understandably, suspicious.

"Because I need to check it. If you used your power, then…you know what happens, don't you? You are the source of the chronic hysteresis?"

"You mean the time loop, don't you?" Homura asked.

Moni nodded. "Yeah, sorry. That's what I get for spending too much time with time travellers."

"Spending too much time with…what?" She blinked, surprised again.

"Yes. I work with…a people experienced with time travel. I'm not one of them, but I work with them. And your time loop drew their attention. Of course, when they saw an Incubator and Magical Girls involved, well, guess who they sent in?"

"You?"

"Me. My full title is Paladin Monitor of the Order of Maxwell's Demon(3)." On her understandably blank look, he said, "One of the founders was fond of human culture. Maxwell was the scientist who discovered the Laws of Thermodynamics on your world." At this, he became more solemn. Older-looking, far older than he should look. Homura knew that look all too well. She saw it in the mirror each day. "And you know what the Second Law is, don't you?"

"No, I'm sorry."

"You do. You've fought the Incubators." With a sepulchral tone, he intoned, "_Entropy, in a closed system, will always increase overall, and never decrease._"

Entropy. The bane of the Incubators, and indeed, of all creation. Disorder. Lack of energy. Eventually, the universe would become a uniform soup of energy, but energy that could not do anything, for energy required difference in order to do anything.

The Heat Death of the Universe. That's what Kyubey called it.

And the Incubators, of whom Kyubey was their representative, were determined to stop it.

Hence, the use of Magical Girls. Kyubey would give them a single wish that it would grant. In exchange, the Magical Girls would fight Witches and their Familiars, beings of evil that tainted everything they touched, born out of curses and despair.

Of course, Kyubey deceived them. The creature didn't exactly lie, but had been economical with the truth in most areas, and twisted it in others. The Witches **were** born from despair and curses, but out of those of a Magical Girl whose Soul Gem was corrupted by despair, or else from a Familiar that had managed to murder enough people. The Soul Gems were literally that, containers for Magical Girls' souls, phylacteries that enhanced their abilities, and operating their now-vacant bodies like puppets.

The Soul Gems were what were vital to the whole plan of the Incubators. Teenaged girls were a particularly ripe source of emotions, emotions that, when harnessed by the Incubators, were able to reverse entropy, or at least hold it back. And because of the nature of a Magical Girl's existence, it was inevitable that they either died in combat (they were highly durable without souls, but far from invincible), or became the very monsters they fought. A seemingly perfect system that Homura had spent so long trying to beat.

Considering what he said, she then asked, "And what do you want with me?"

"I did say the loop has to end, one way or the other. Like I said, people are getting concerned. Time loops can degrade over time, and degrade the fabric of time as well. That makes you dangerous." Hastily, he waved his hand. "Sorry, I didn't mean to say it like that. I don't want to hurt you or kill you. Though some people would. No, I'm here to stop the Incubators' plan for this world. I'd prefer that no people die in the process."

_He sounds like Madoka, in his own way. And like me. He shares Madoka's optimism. And my nervousness. At least before I met Madoka. How long ago was that? I can't remember now. But I can't trust him. I can't trust anyone_.

"You can't stop what's happening," Homura muttered. "I've tried. So many times."

"I know you've tried," he said, equally quietly. "But I've stopped the Incubators on other worlds before."

"And you're asking me to trust you?"

"Maybe that's a bit too much. But…you're one person, trying to change many. I can help. I know the Incubators, I know the ins and outs of the nature of Magical Girls. For example, I was able to disarm you."

"True," Homura conceded. "How did you do that?"

"Magic. Or rather, Block Transfer Computation(4). That's the real source of your magic. Clarke's Law.(5)" Moni then looked at her thoughtfully. "If I explain everything…would you make a decision?"

Homura looked at him. The time loop was wearing on her, she had to admit. Even though she tried changing the story, the ending remained, more or less, the same. Either with Madoka dead, or a Witch. And in truth, she was running out of ideas how to vary her actions with each loop. And if he was telling the truth, and she had attracted attention from others, then time was running out.

She nodded. "But explain everything. I want to know why you fight the Incubators. And why you're helping me."

Moni moved over next to her. "Well, are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin…"

**ANNOTATIONS FOR CHAPTER 1**

**1\. Walpurgis Nacht is the ultimate Witch, named for the German equivalent of Beltane (April 30****th****). Named, ironically enough, after a Christian saint, Saint Walpurga. Walpurgis Nacht is the eve before Saint Walpurga's Day. Supposedly, during this night, witches meet to do evil and wicked things.**

**2\. Trey is the nickname given to a character (or rather, a particular incarnation) who, if I listed her real name, would be well-known to Whovians. Those who don't mind spoilers, I'll give a hint: she is played by Juliet Landau of ****_Buffy_**** fame.**

**3\. Maxwell's Demon is a name for a theoretical phenomenon that allows for entropy to spontaneously reverse (that is, disorder turns spontaneously to order, like, say, if boiling water spontaneously turns into ice). I first read about this in the Mr Tompkins books by George Gamow. Incidentally, Whovians who have watched ****_Logopolis_**** may have noticed something with Moni's full name…**

**4\. Block Transfer Computation is a key ability in the ****_Doctor Who_**** story ****_Logopolis_****. While it is explained later in this work, a quick summary can't hurt. It is basically an advanced science for using the mathematical nature of reality to shape reality using calculations. Computers can't be used, as they would be too adversely affected by the changes in reality, but living minds still work. In the next ****_Doctor Who_**** story, ****_Castrovalva_****, BTC is used to create an entire, if isolated and small, civilisation from scratch. I thought linking BTC and the Magical Girls' abilities an appealing idea.**

**5\. Clarke's Law (more specifically, Arthur C Clarke's third law) states that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Moni has an interest in human culture as much as many of his comrades do.**


	3. Chapter 2: Of Entropy

**CHAPTER 2:**

**OF ENTROPY**

The Heat Death of the Universe is a frightening thing, isn't it? The fact that not only will one day, all life will cease, but all energy will too. The potential to create civilisation, no longer there. And not only that, but an eraser of any evidence of existence. For many civilisations, it is, at best, a very sobering thought.

Many considered various solutions to the problem. Many dismissed them out of hand. Some solutions were too outlandish. Some were impossible. And others…were immoral.

Two species, however, hit upon differing but workable solutions. One species, the Incubators, gathered followers amongst themselves in order to conduct their plan with impunity.

The other civilisation hit upon a more novel, less convoluted, and less immoral solution. Entropy will only increase to universal heat death in a closed system. The universe was mostly closed, but the second civilisation found a way around that, opening special gateways into other universes. This did not transfer the entropy into the other universes, rather, merely making sure that the inevitable demises of all these universes were postponed. Burdens shared were burdens reduced.

But the Incubators seethed. Their solution not only halted entropy, but actively reduced it, whereas the other solution was fragile. Should the gateways close, a great wave of entropy would sweep across the cosmos, overtaking even light and time. It could potentially consume the universe within days.

The other civilisation knew this, and worked to find a better solution. The Incubators were annoyed that this other civilisation had even tried, and believed that only their solution was the correct one. Thus, in a somewhat petulant manner, they tried attempts at sabotage, but never succeeded. Most of this other civilisation was peaceful, but a dissident splinter group, demanding greater attention to the Incubator's plans, decided to disrupt them. And the splinter group itself splintered. Some wished to merely stop the Incubators, and save their victims, the Magical Girls. Others considered the Magical Girls as culpable as the Incubators themselves, destined to become monsters.

The Incubators, incensed by the interference, nonetheless resolved to use subtlety to get their own way. They decided to manipulate a proxy to put an end to their rival civilisation for once and for all.

Their proxy was unusual. He came from a race of time travellers who nonetheless refused to interfere in the affairs of others. But like the civilisation opposing the Incubators, there were renegades. Some were benign wanderers. Others were meddlers of varying morality. And yet others wished to dominate. The Incubator's catspaw fell firmly into the last category. He wished for nothing more than to be master of everything he surveyed. The Incubators, while knowing he was dangerous, treated his ambitions with the contempt it deserved.

He stowed away on the timeship of his rival and mortal enemy, a fellow renegade who needed to visit the Incubators' rivals for reasons of his own. He was a good man, generally, this other renegade, a healer of chaos, even if chaos and death swirled in his wake. The Incubators had told the evil renegade that a great secret existed on their rivals' world, a secret he would have to sabotage that world in order to divulge. But when he realised what he had done, it was too late. Entropy began to ravage that world, and the universe, at an accelerated rate.

A third of the universe succumbed to the entropy wave before the two renegades managed to implement a solution. The evil renegade, however, decided on a last-minute insane gamble: hold the universe to ransom. Either the entire cosmos would submit to him as a ruler, or it would perish.

The other renegade, the good one, managed to prevent his enemy from implementing his insane plan, but at the cost of his life. He survived: his species had the ability to rebuild their body when mortally wounded. But the universe was saved, and the evil renegade decided to cut his losses, trying to find safer ways of dominating the universe.(1)

The Incubators rejoiced, insomuch as supposedly emotionless creatures could. Their rivals were gone, and while the splinter factions still attacked them, it meant that one of their greatest opponents had been erased. They had their own plan to stop the entropy wave, making sure that only they and their allies survived. But the survival of much of the rest of the universe was actually optimal for them. It meant that they could continue with their sick little plans…

* * *

"So, that's the backstory," Moni said.

"Where do you fit into this?" Homura asked, frowning. She managed to take it all in, but she got the feeling that he hadn't told her everything. Then again, she also felt that he told her far more than Kyubey ever did.

"Ah, yes," he said, looking uncomfortable. "My parents were one of the splinter group. When our world was destroyed, they were far away. I was born seventeen years after our world was destroyed, in what would be considered the year 1997(2) by your reckoning. I was raised by the Order. Two years ago, I joined the fight."

"That young?" Homura asked. He must've been only twelve.

"You're only, what, fourteen? Like I would be in your years? And I know many Magical Girls who joined younger. I joined the fight willingly. And they considered my abilities very useful, anyway."

"Abilities?" She then realised. "Your Block Transfer Calculations…"

"_Computations_, but same thing, yes. Even by the standards of my people, I'm a prodigy. Of course, getting thrown into battle against Witches, Magical Girls and Incubators does sharpen the mind. I've got the scars to prove it." He wasn't bragging. If anything, he seemed embarrassed, apologetic, even anxious, about admitting his ability and his scars, though he admitted it all the same. It wasn't any kind of modesty, affected or otherwise. Homura wondered whether he thought that stopping the Incubators was going to be an adventure, only to find out it was Hell. Hell, he even seemed more like an exotic version of a protagonist of some harem anime.

But there was something about him. His eyes, his crimson eyes, were older than the rest of him, glittering with sorrow and anxiety. The weight of a whole world on his shoulders. But there was also a determination in them. A hardness in them.

"Why?" she asked. "Why do you fight?"

He shrugged, but his face became darker, his brows lowering, his eyes glittering with anger. He had become more serious than he had ever been. Then, he spoke a single word. "Revenge."

"For your people." It wasn't a question.

He nodded. "A petty, childish reason…but not just for my people. There's a world that used to be out there called Traken(3). A world so filled with decency and goodness that anything evil that set foot there got petrified until it eroded away. Save for brief periods of unrest when its new ruler gets elected, it was as close to utopia as any place can be in the universe. Beautiful. Peaceful. No harm to anyone. It was at the centre of an ancient benevolent empire spanning many star systems. All of them wiped out by the entropy wave."

"What of that renegade time traveller? The evil one?"

"You mean I should blame him as well as the Incubators? Of course I do. The man's evil. But he's also hard to find. Last I heard, his own people were considering conscripting him into their dirty tricks division(4)." He spat the last sentence out contemptuously. "Those people think he could be useful."

"Fools," Homura remarked.

"I agree," Moni said.

There was silence for a time. Homura considered the boy. His story was outlandish, and she did get the feeling that he held some things back. But it certainly sounded like something the Incubators would do. In more than one timeline where Madoka became a Witch, the Incubators left Earth to its fate, deciding that they had harvested enough from the planet. Homura had to flee back in time to avoid death at the hands of the monster she had once called a friend.

So could she trust him?

"May I see your Soul Gem, please?" he asked, once more.

After a moment, she nodded, extracting the jewel, and handing it over to the strange boy. He took it with such reverence and respect, she knew he knew what it truly was.

"Oh, _Homura_," he murmured, his eyebrows knotting together in concern as he examined it. "I don't know how you managed for so long. I can't reverse the process used to create this, not until the Incubators have lost interest in this world. But I can make it easier."

"What do you mean?" Homura asked. She realised she was asking a lot of questions.

"There's a trick I learned. I can increase the capacity of a Soul Gem, increase the time period needed before you need to use a Grief Seed. The Incubators, they deliberately engineer it so the capacity is dangerously near a critical level." The boy sneered at the thought. "Like planned obsolescence, only it causes far more death and destruction. And yet…despite all that, you managed to keep it clear. How many loops, Homura?"

"…I don't know any more. I lost count."

"And yet, this is still so clear," Moni murmured, awestruck, and sad. "I can still give you an increased capacity. Would you like me to do so?"

Much of her clamoured against him doing this. But then, she realised, she had little left to lose. If he was true to his word, then she had an extra advantage in her fight against the Incubators. So she nodded. "The moment I sense any funny business, though…"

He shook his head, before clasping the jewel between his hands. He closed his eyes, and murmured, "BTC: Soul Expansion." His lips continued to move, though no words, or at least recognisable words, came out.

It was…difficult to describe the sensation Homura felt soon after he began. It was as if a great pressure was being gradually and gently lifted. Her feelings of sorrow, of hatred, of fear and determination were still there, true, but it felt like they had more room to move. Like there was a room in her soul, and it went from the size of a little apartment to a vast mansion. It was neither pleasant or unpleasant, just strange, but…relieving. Like the burden of her fate just got that little bit lighter.

Eventually, Moni uncapped his hands. The Soul Gem was not just clearer, it was gently glowing, in a way that she had never seen it glow before. He handed it back to her with a gentle smile. "There was much room for your soul to grow. No wonder you survived for so long."

Homura couldn't think of a reply to that. It had been so long since she had any praise, unless you counted Madoka's ignorant but sincere exclamations, and Kyoko's acidic and grudging but also sincere praise. They were constants during the loops. And now this boy was praising her, or at least her soul.

But then again, the soul was what made Homura Akemi who she was. Wasn't it?

Before she could say anything, whether in gratitude or comment, a trilling noise emanated from his cloak. "Crap," he murmured. "The boss lady wants a word."

He fumbled around, before producing a disc with a strange, elaborate symbol on it. It reminded Homura of the Celtic symbols of Britain, though this had a vague figure-of-eight look to it. Or an infinity sign.

He placed it on the bedside table, the symbol face-up. Blue light burst out of it, coalescing into the face of a striking-looking woman. It was hard to tell how old she was. She could have been in her twenties, or in her late forties. Long dark hair framed her haughty face. High cheekbones enhanced her haughty demeanour(5). And yet, when she looked at the pair of them, her face softened. "_Paladin Moni_," she said, her voice soft, but carrying the undeniable authority of someone in command, "_report_."

Moni seemed to salute with a mere nod. His voice became clipped. Formal. Almost robotic, certainly military. "Madam President. Infiltration of chronic hysteresis successful. I have identified the two Axes around which it revolves. The specific originator of the time loops is this Magical Girl, Miss Homura Akemi. I am yet to assess the situation completely, but Homura has been advised of the broader nature of the operation. The second Axis is another girl of similar age, first name of Madoka, last name unknown. During the stage of the time loop prior to reset, she was yet to make the Contract, but an Incubator was present. Definitely a candidate. Homura…knows her, I believe."

_You can say that again_, Homura thought to herself, but she remained silent. For the moment.

The woman addressed as 'Madam President' (was she the Lady Trey mentioned earlier?) sighed, relaxing slightly. "_Nothing else?_"

"No, sorry. It's only been an hour, relative time, since I was inducted into the time loop. And I'm still feeling nauseous because of that damned Witch." His formal façade dropped, and his face twisted in some mixture of anger and disgust. "Dammit, Lady Trey, I haven't seen something that powerful since Skaro and that fiasco with the Thals(6)."

She peered at him, concerned after he brought that up. "_Is it as bad? Or worse?_"

"I think it's worse. Not impossible to beat, but…" Moni turned to Homura. "That big Witch…what was its name?"

"Walpurgis Nacht," she replied.

He nodded, returning his gaze to Lady Trey. "There you go. We're talking potential planet-hopping threat here, that's how powerful the Witch is. I saw that thing. It's a force of nature. It'd make the Daleks look desirable by comparison. I may need help."

Lady Trey sighed. Clearly, what she said wasn't going to go down well. "_I'm afraid not._" As Moni's mouth quivered, about to scream why, Trey said, "_The Bloody Hammers are making their move._"

This caused Moni some pause for thought. He muttered an expletive.

"Excuse me," Homura asked, "but…if you really are aliens, why do you look like humans? Or speak Japanese for that matter?"

"_My species came first, and one of our founding fathers…tampered with the biomorphic principles of the universe(_7)," Lady Trey explained patiently. "_Most evolved species thus end up looking like us. As for the language, it's a gift of my people. Usually, it requires the presence of one of our time machines to work, but Moni's work requires him to be capable of speaking virtually any language. You seem to be taking this in your stride, Homura._"

"I've…seen worse. And weirder." Which was true. Time travel was a fact of life for Homura now, and after knowing Kyubey, meeting human-like aliens was a relief. "And the Bloody Hammers…they're not good, are they?"

"You ever heard of witch-hunters?" Moni said quietly. Homura nodded, remembering tales, especially from Europe, of fanatical inquisitors torturing and executing people who were most likely innocent. "Think that for Witches, only they target Magical Girls as well," he said. "Almost as bad as Daleks."

"_Oh, well done, Moni_," Lady Trey remarked sarcastically. "_Top points for tact._"

"She needs to know," Moni snapped back. "Besides, Homura doesn't know what a Dalek is." Turning back to Homura, he said, "Pray you never meet one. Even Incubators have more mercy than a Dalek."

A ridiculous sounding name. _Dalek_. But the way that both Moni and Trey's expressions darkened when the name was mentioned suggested that behind the ridiculous name lurked a terror that scared even time travelling aliens. Worse than Incubators? Must be really bad, Homura mused.

"So, everyone you could've spared…" Moni began.

"…_are trying to run countermeasures against them_," Trey said, nodding. "_Agent McShane(__8)__ is assisting on site. And in any case, the time loop is still playing havoc with our sensors. Hopefully, it will hinder the Bloody Hammers more than our efforts can. And the Agency(__9)__ is keeping tabs on things._"

"…what about…you know, _him?_" Moni asked quietly. Almost hopefully.

Trey shook her head. "_He's wary of us, after that whole fiasco involving the Agency and the Daleks(__10)__. I'm trying to override the blocks he has put on his communication channels. That's the best I can do. But for the moment, Moni, you're on your own. Report to me once you've learned more. I know that you want the situation resolved with few casualties…but the Agency isn't so sure. This one looks like it'll be messy. Good luck, Moni. And you too, Homura,_" she said, turning her gaze to Homura, before the hologram faded away…

**ANNOTATIONS FOR CHAPTER 2**

**1\. This is an oblique, serial-numbers-filed-off summary of the events of ****_Doctor Who: Logopolis_****, albeit with the ****_Puella Magi Madoka Magica_**** elements added. **

**2\. This date was chosen to make sure Moni was about the same age as the girls. How Logopolitans grew is never stated. We don't even see any females of the species in the story. So I made the assumption that, while long-lived, they mature at the same rate, more or less, as humans.**

**3\. The first truly overt reference to the Whoniverse I have added. Moni's description of Traken is broadly true. It was the homeworld of Nyssa, one of the Doctor's companions, and she ended up being the last of her kind. Her father was also used as a host for the dying Master, the evil renegade mentioned throughout Moni's account.**

**4\. A reference to the Master's explanation of his survival in ****_Dark Eyes 2_**** suggests that the Celestial Intervention Agency helped revive him.**

**5\. I tried my best to describe the character in question based on the one image of the actress in the role. Again, I'm keeping the secret, but if you look up a picture of Juliet Landau, you'll know what Lady Trey looks like.**

**6\. Another overt Whoniverse reference. The Thals, like the Daleks, are natives of Skaro. However, the mutations affecting their people ran their course in the Thals, and they became beautiful human-like beings. Although mostly pacifistic, they have been forced to fight by the xenophobic Daleks. I thought a Thal Magical Girl to be an interesting and amusing concept. Imagine one of those taking on a squad of Daleks?**

**7\. This is stated in the audio story ****_Zagreus_****. The founder in question was Rassilon.**

**8\. AKA the Doctor's companion Ace. The Big Finish audios confirms that she works for the Time Lords, as of the release of ****_Gallifrey: Intervention Earth_****.**

**9\. The Celestial Intervention Agency. A manipulative Time Lord agency that stops at nothing to get its way. The Doctor had worked for them before, often reluctantly. Sometimes he is a reluctant ally to them, at others, he is an enemy to them.**

**10\. An oblique reference to the events of ****_Dark Eyes_****. Although these took place before Romana's presidency (from Gallifrey's point of view, anyway), I think of them as taking place at about this time for the Doctor. Confusing, isn't it? The upshot is, Moni is asking whether the Doctor is available. Unfortunately, the Doctor is finding it harder to work with the Time Lords, even his old friend Romana…**


	4. Chapter 3: Argumentum ad Passiones

**CHAPTER 3:**

**ARGUMENTUM AD PASSIONES**

It was after Lady Trey finished speaking to them that Moni asked Homura to tell him what was going on. Of the events that led to the time loop. Of what turned the shy Homura Akemi into a cold, stoic warrior, determined to save Madoka Kaname.

It took a long time. Longer than Moni had taken to explain his own background. Even skipping over the details of the previous timelines, she gave him a succinct summary of what had happened, and what happened when she tried to change the timeline. Of the fact that the ending refused to change, no matter how she changed the story.

After she had finished, Moni remained silent for a time. He seemed contemplative, before he said, "You seem to think that many parts of the timeline are a forgone conclusion. That's because…well, the abilities you are granted as part of the Incubator's pact tend to be singular in purpose. In fact, you were lucky to get your time travel abilities into the bargain."

"And why is that?" Homura asked, her cold edge returning.

"From what you told me, Sayaka's demise, whether it be because she is killed, regardless of whether she is a Magical Girl or not, or turned into a Witch, varies in times and circumstances. If it were a fixed point in time(1), then there'd be little variation in the time of her demise, or the circumstances for that matter. Standard deviation(2) for fixed points like a single person's death is usually a few hours at most, not the days you've indicated. Of course, my temporal theory is pretty basic. But the Incubators may be able to tell if one of Lady Trey's people come here, or at least if they come here officially. The Incubators are afraid of them, and may decide on a scorched Earth policy, and blame it on the Witches. They've done it before."

Homura shuddered at such a thought. "And they get away with it," she stated, her voice dripping with barely concealed venom.

"Most civilisations are really concerned about universal heat death, especially after the entropy wave disaster. Some are looking for alternatives, but too many have thrown their lot in with the Incubators." A bitter chuckle wormed its way out of his pale lips. "They consider the harvesting of a small proportion of primitive races to be a small price to pay. Many of them do not dissimilar things. Not on the same scale, usually, but I've heard about dodgy deals the Adipose(3) get involved with, though they at least avoid the Incubators. Some are too scared. They know the Incubators arranged for my people to be wiped out from the cosmos. They're afraid that the Incubators may do the same to them."

Changing the subject back to what it had been, Homura said, "You think Sayaka's death can be avoided. And Mami Tomoe's death. And Kyoko Sakura's." It was a question, but spoken as a statement. Her tone was sceptical, and understandably so.

"It's worth trying."

"Worth trying?" She nearly spat the words out incredulously, emotion that had long since been tamped down beginning to boil upwards. "I have tried, Moni. I've done nothing **_but_** try! Unlike you, I have tried, time and time again, to stop them from falling into darkness! Mami tried to murder us all when she found out the truth! All that I care about is Madoka! I don't want her to suffer any more!"

Moni didn't recoil. Instead, he looked at her levelly, like an adult waiting for a child to finish. He was a mass of contradictions. At times calm and collected, at other times, a nervous near-klutz, and at yet other times, as cold and detached as Homura was forced to make herself.

Eventually, he said, "I know what it's like to fail. To keep failing, no matter what. To feel responsible for every failure. To discard what seems hard to accomplish, in order to make your goals easier. To discard feelings and empathy like they were old ragged clothes. Homura, are you familiar with the philosopher Nietzsche?"

"I have heard of him."

He sighed, before saying, "He once said something. _Those who fight monsters must take care lest they become monsters themselves_."

Once more, her anger was unleashed. Homura was out of the hospital bed, bearing Moni to the floor, a knife summoned from her arsenal at his throat. "How dare you? How dare you speak to me like that? I am not a monster!"

"Aren't you?" he asked quietly. "As a Magical Girl, you're a monster waiting to be born. And even without that, think about it. The Incubators discarded empathy and emotion long ago. I can name a ridiculous amount of aliens out there who did that. Cutting their emotions out with a scalpel, or burning it out with genetic vector viruses, because they thought it weakness. Tell me, Homura…when was the last time you watched a sunset? Smelled a flower? Ate a well-prepared meal(4)? All for the simple joy of it?"

The questions cut into her. When was the last time she did any of those things? When did she discard those things as simply irrelevant to her mission?

"I met a man…the renegade time traveller I mentioned, the good one. He taught me many things." He then looked away from her, a glint of shame in his eyes. "And I needed the teaching. One thing he did teach me is to avoid sacrificing innocents to stop an atrocity. Sayaka, Mami, Kyoko…they didn't know what they were getting into. And they don't know about the true nature of the Magical Girl. If you want to focus on saving Madoka alone, then you must realise that I intend to save as many of them as possible."

"And how will you do that?" Homura said, taking her knife away, and getting off him. The two of them got to their feet, Moni rubbing the back of his head and wincing.

"I've…got a plan. Well, a plan in progress. Well, more like a repertoire of things we can do based on a very loose structure. Without your help, I won't be able to help everyone. And without my help, not only will you be doomed to repeat this again and again, but you may end up having this time loop, and everyone heavily involved in it, erased from reality. That's not a threat. The Agency takes a very dim view of time travel that takes place outside their purview."

He spoke so casually of such cataclysmic events. But Homura had seen Walpurgis Nacht tear up much of an entire city. It wasn't much of a stretch to imagine a callous destruction of people in such a way that they never existed before.

She still wasn't sure whether he could be trusted. But he was new to the timeline. A new variable. And truth be told, she could do with the help. In more than one version of the time loop, she had allied herself with the vicious Kyoko, recruiting her to prepare for Walpurgis Nacht. She hadn't trusted Kyoko herself, but she trusted the other Magical Girl's ability and strength.

"Then I will accept your offer, Moni. We will make this loop the last one," she said, with a conviction she hadn't felt for a very long time. Not hope. But conviction.

"Good," he said, smiling. "Now, we'd better make plans…"

* * *

After spending so long at the hospital, Moni was now walking down the now dark streets of the city, deep in thought. It had hurt him to lie to Homura, although these were lies of omission. Not just in the tale of how his world came to an end. No, he had reworked the tale just in case the Incubator was capable of listening in. Words that might have just leaked through to the Incubator from Homura's mind. Like _Master_. Or _Doctor_. Or _Gallifrey_. Or _Logopolis_.

But that was minor, compared to what he held back. For her own good. But also for his own.

He looked down at his hands. For a brief moment, he imagined them stained with blood. Red, blue, green, purple, orange…the blood of dozens of different species from dozens of different worlds.

He drew in a great, shuddering breath. He was paying for his mistakes. He was doing penance for his past. But the past had a nasty habit of catching up with him. As it seemed it was now.

He sensed it long before he saw it. Quickly, he changed his appearance with Block Transfer Computation. His nature was masked, but it didn't help to be more careful. His white hair became black, his red eyes became brown, and his features became a little more Asiatic.

Part of him smirked. He'd learned the trick from a Rutan who had been part of a small splinter faction. Natural shapeshifters, almost all of the Rutan Host were at war against the Sontarans, a militaristic clone race. At stake was domination of the galaxy. But there was a few dissident groups, within the Rutan Host at least. A splinter hive-mind that shared little of the war-like tendencies of their brethren(5). They had taught him techniques that helped with shifting his body language. Of course, superficially altering his body using BTC was different to the Rutans' more advanced shapeshifting, but every bit helped.

He saw the Incubator long before it saw or sensed him as he walked through a park. Of course, it was technically invisible, save to Magical Girls and candidates for Magical Girls. But anyone who needed to oppose them soon learned how to see the damned things. The fact that the organic body it currently wore was a Block Transfer Computation construct helped. It often wore this sort of body when dealing with humanoid species. The cuteness factor helped make its manipulations easier.

The damned thing was sitting under a lamppost, waiting for something. Or someone. It was sitting in a pool of light, its back to him. Oh, it was so tempting to launch a BTC attack at it right now. But to do so was to tip his hand too early. But he looked at the lamp, directly above the creature. Primitive electric lamp, with a heavy glass cover that could easily injure a person badly if it dropped.

Smirking sadistically, he used a very simple BTC ability. He called it Entropy. After the very thing that wiped out his people. He tweaked the molecules of the glass, making the glass around the edges where it was attached to the lamp housing disintegrate. With barely a noise, the heavy glass cover fell, its speed accelerated somewhat by Moni tweaking gravity just above the Incubator.

But it made enough of a noise that Kyubey looked up, just in time for its body to be squashed by the glass. The body exploded into gore in a fashion that was almost comical. It certainly amused Moni no end. But he kept the laughter within, knowing he'd have to find a place to settle for the night. And the Incubator would be around soon to eat its old body, if his experience was any judge.

Feeling cheered up already, Moni danced away. If Homura had seen that sadistic smirk, she would have been disturbed. Moni had shown many sides to himself, and now, he was wearing a smirk that would have given Kyoko Sakura a run for her money.

* * *

Kyubey wandered over to the corpse of its previous body. Picking the glass shards from the corpse, the creature then began to eat at it. Autocannibalism, it reasoned, was a conservation of precious resources.

Of course, it'd help if accidents like that didn't happen. There'd been one embarrassing situation where Kyubey had been run over by a car when a rather careless Magical Girl had dropped it in the heat of battle. Incubators claimed to have rid themselves of emotions, but Kyubey did feel a certain perverse satisfaction when that Magical Girl died in battle.

In truth, creatures who claimed to have rid themselves of emotions merely sliced away most, if not all. The Daleks' creator, Davros, had suppressed everything but fear, hatred, and anger. What joys a Dalek took were in furthering its xenophobic creed. The Cybermen got rid of many of their emotions, but some variations could simulate emotions in order to enhance their responses with their enemies. And truth be told, they could understand vengeance, spite, and superiority.

The Incubators were no different. Their emotions were shaved down to bloody nubs, and they pretended that the emotions weren't there, but they were. Blunted, eroded, but there.

What creatures like them failed to realise that it wasn't their emotions they were truly discarding, but their empathy. On Earth, it was Samuel Johnson who said that 'He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man'. It would be more correct to say that it was those who cut out their hearts did so for that reason.

They went down different roads, but they had a similar destination. Daleks, Cybermen, Incubators. They became obsessed with their own survival as an ends rather than a means, and saw emotions as an obstacle to that end. Survival is a means to an end. Beings like that, who view survival as an end rather than a means, cannot envision an end. Daleks believe that survival means the destruction of all living things. Cybermen seek to either assimilate, or destroy. And Incubators are, ultimately, thanataphobes(6) to an extreme degree: their survival is paramount. Above even that of the Time Lords. What will they do with their survival? Survive. They don't care that their survival is even more of a tautology than that of the Daleks or the Cybermen.

Kyubey would have frowned in mild concern if it was capable of such an expression. It had senses beyond that of any human. And it was certain that nearby was a slight but noticeable rise in ambient artron energy(7). Not that it was inexplicable: many things could cause such a rise, and it was a small rise after all.

But the Incubator also knew that it could mean trouble. Unfortunately, it couldn't tell where it had come from, or else it would investigate. In any case, it wanted to wait for Mami Tomoe, who was due to report here soon.

Little did the Incubator know, coincidence, or perhaps fate, had intervened…

**CHAPTER 3 ANNOTATIONS:**

**1\. A concept introduced in the new series of ****_Doctor Who_****. In other words, parts of history that can't be interfered with in any way without catastrophic consequences. The concept was explored to its fullest and darkest potential in ****_The Waters of Mars_****.**

**2\. A term in statistics. A standard deviation is a measure of variation from an average. Here, Moni is using it to say that Sayaka's death shouldn't have varied in time so much (I'm assuming her various deaths in the timelines take place over at least several days).**

**3\. Aliens made mostly from fat molecules. Made their appearance in ****_Doctor Who: Partners in Crime_****.**

**4\. A direct reference to a similar appeal, albeit a futile one, from the Doctor to a Cyberleader in ****_Doctor Who: Earthshock_****.**

**5\. Rutans look like green jellyfish with a hive mind, and can not only shapeshift, but also electrocute their victims. For Whovians complaining that I made up this splinter group, a similar concept appears in the Bernice Summerfield audio ****_The Bellotron Incident_****.**

**6\. Thanatophobia is fear of death.**

**7\. Artron energy is the 'life force' of the Whoniverse. It not only works as part of the power systems for the TARDIS, but also is especially prevalent in time travellers. Hence Kyubey's concern.**


	5. Chapter 4: Leonine Contract

**CHAPTER 4:**

**LEONINE CONTRACT(****1)**

Mami Tomoe, to put it mildly, was not a happy girl. Oh, she put a brave face on it, smiling a lot of the time, and her expression was almost always serene and calm, but when you looked at her eyes, she always seemed on the verge of tears. And to tell the truth, she had very good reason to. For Mami Tomoe was a Magical Girl.

The circumstances under which she became a Magical Girl are worth noting here, as they betray the malign nature of the Incubators, beneath their supposed noble goals and detachment. While they generally do not offer their Contracts under duress, they are not above doing so, albeit opportunistically. In short, while they generally would not actively put a candidate for becoming a Magical Girl into a situation where they needed to become one in order to survive, they didn't hesitate to take advantage of such opportunities.

Mami Tomoe was one of these unlucky few. Kyubey had been observing her for some time, and had even approached the girl once to offer her the deal. She asked to think it over, only to get involved in a car crash. Her parents died instantly. Mami was dying. And Kyubey offered her a wish: she would survive, in exchange for becoming a Magical Girl.

It was a Leonine contract. One where the choices were to die immediately, or die later, fighting a Witch. And that was without even considering the fact that Magical Girls were doomed to become Witches if they did not die in battle, though Mami was ignorant of this fact. Indeed, most Magical Girls were. Then again, if they did learn, in all likelihood, the despair would drive them to become Witches, or else take drastic measures.

In another timeline, Mami, upon hearing the truth from a well-meaning Homura (early on in her attempts to change Madoka's fate), snapped. She didn't become a Witch, but she murdered her fellow Magical Girls, trying to prevent them from becoming Witches the only way she thought she could. She had been stopped, but Homura had decided long ago that Mami was beyond saving. And the girl's serene attitude, masking her fragile state, had begun to wear on Homura. Then again, everything in the time loop had begun to wear on Homura now.

Save for Madoka.

However, such weariness and familiarity had not affected Moni. True, he did have a weariness about him, from long experience, and so many battles. But he also believed, fervently, that every Magical Girl could be potentially saved. Sometimes, he failed, and there wasn't a damn thing that he could do about it. But it mattered that he tried.

At least, that's what he told himself.

So it was by staggering coincidence that the two met. Moni had sensed the approach of a Soul Gem, and thus a Magical Girl, and so decided to intercept her. He hadn't realised that it was Mami Tomoe until he saw her, and realised she matched Homura's description. She stank of the Incubators' curse.

Blonde hair, yellow eyes, and a sad smile. Quite pretty, too. Dressed in the uniform of the local high school, rather than her Magical Girl costume. Moni reviewed what Homura had told him. Mami's magic revolved around using magical guns, mostly gigantic flintlock rifles, along with her ribbons. She was a good fighter, true, but there were occasions where her veneer of confidence proved her undoing in other timelines.

He needed close contact with the Soul Gem in order to determine her state fully, and unlike Homura, he intended to do so covertly. He also intended to expand the capacity of her Soul Gem covertly.

So, how to do this?

Moni hit upon a plan. He'd used it before. The Slip, Trip, and Flip. As they neared each other, Moni deliberately tripped himself up. He plunged with a yelp towards Mami, knocking her down to the ground. As they did so, Moni activated a special BTC ability to send the Soul Gem flying from where she kept it. Then, they were both on the ground, thankfully not entangled. That would have made things considerably more awkward.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Moni groaned, getting up off the ground.

"It's okay," Mami said, before she realised the Soul Gem was gone. "Oh no! Excuse me, Mr…"

"Moni."

"Moni, I dropped a precious jewel of mine," she said in a quite understandable panic. "Egg-sized and shaped, yellow in colour. It's…precious to me!"

Moni nodded. The BTC spell would stop her from being able to see it for a time, giving him enough time to find it (he had seen it plunge into some nearby bushes), but also to make the necessary modifications.

After some play-acting of searching the bushes near the Soul Gem, he found it, and carefully examined it. As Homura had explained, Mami had a certain fragility and sorrow to her that could be dangerous. And the capacity of her Soul Gem was somewhat lower than the norm. But there was still a strength there that shouldn't be underestimated.

_BTC: Soul Expansion_, he chanted to himself. The capacity of the Soul Gem increased. Not as much as it had done for Homura, but now Mami had a better chance of survival.

"Here it is!" he said, handing the Soul Gem over. "Sorry about that," he said, rubbing the back of his head in a display of faux-sheepishness.

"It's okay," Mami said, taking the Soul Gem back without any rancour or anger.

Now, could he risk something? Yes. Maybe he could. "Umm, excuse me…was that a Soul Gem?"

This certainly surprised her. "How do you know?"

"I…used to know a Magical Girl elsewhere," he said, once more sheepishly rubbing the back of his head. "Unfortunately, well, we didn't get along well. I only recently transferred here."

"I'm surprised," Mami said, peering at him curiously (but without suspicion, he hoped). "It's usually only Magical Girls and potential Magical Girls who know."

"Yeah, well, what can I say?" Moni said, laughing nervously. "Sorry, I didn't mean to pry."

"That's okay," Mami said. "Are you coming to our school?"

"Probably. I might see you there. Be seeing you," he said, putting his index finger and thumb together, making a hole that he put to his eye, only to wave it away in a salute. Seeing her dumbfounded expression, he sighed. "Never mind.(2)"

* * *

Kyubey was relieved (or at least the nearest equivalent to a being like Kyubey) when Mami finally arrived. Kyubey sensed trouble, though. "What's the matter, Mami?" Kyubey asked in its high-pitched, androgynous voice.

"Hmm? Oh, I bumped into someone, a boy my age. I don't know how, but I lost my Soul Gem. He found it, and…well, he knew what it was, Kyubey."

He? A human teenaged _male_ knew what a Soul Gem was? It wasn't unheard of: occasionally, boyfriends of Magical Girls found out about their girlfriends' double lives, and sometimes wished to help. Kyubey knew that this was potentially disastrous, given that its scheme relied on secrecy, but the emotional bonds of humans helped keep that secrecy, and a boyfriend killed by a Witch or its Familiars often proved a vital catalyst for turning a Magical Girl into a Witch. Even so, Kyubey knew of no such cases at this moment. "Did he give his name, Mami?" Kyubey asked.

"No. He was a bit weird. Left after doing this weird salute, and said, '_Be seeing you_'," Mami related.

Kyubey's face was rather unexpressive, which was just as well, as Mami would have noticed the frown of thought had it been capable of frowning. As part of their plan, the Incubators infiltrated and observed the popular culture and tropes of this world's storytelling media. Some TV series other than those relating to their plan proved…diverting, even amusing in ways that the Incubators were loath to admit they had the capacity for any more.

Kyubey was one part of a hive mind, and it was from another part of that hive mind that he knew that the phrase came from a subversive television series originating in the United Kingdom. Curious that a Japanese boy would use a phrase and a salute from this very series. Not completely unheard of, but there was something itching at Kyubey's mind about it.

"He did say," Mami added, breaking Kyubey out of its reverie, "that he'd be at my school. A transfer student, probably, as I've never seen him before. He seems like a foreigner. He seemed to speak with a British accent."

A Japanese speaking with a British accent? Not out of the realms of possibility, and it might explain the phrase and salute, but there were few Magical Girls in Britain at the moment.

Of course, that didn't exclude another possibility. That the operation here had been discovered by those opposing the Incubators. There was that surge of artron energy earlier. And perhaps that lamp case housing falling on it may not have been an accident.

Kyubey didn't know for sure whether this newcomer was an active threat, or merely a potential one. Either way, threats had to be dealt with. One way or another…

* * *

Far away, a group of people were conversing, preparing for dark deeds.

"We have found the traitor. And another filthy Incubator project."

"Where?"

"Sol 3 in Mutter's Spiral(3). Earth. That planet the Doctor's so fond of."

"Heh. And he doesn't know. I don't think he'd care, either. Straxus and the Daleks really did a number on him(4). He's just wandering."

"Don't dismiss the Doctor so lightly," someone snarled angrily. "Too many have done so, including some of our number, and they paid the price for it."

"He's a mere mortal, like the rest of us. He can bleed, and he can die. We can even prevent regeneration, remember?"

"Of course. But remember, even if he is mortal, if he was easy to kill, he would have died a billion times over and more. But that's not the point. The traitor has been sent by the Time Lords to deal with an Incubator project. I say we can kill two birds with one stone. We will swoop in, and get rid of them all."

"But if the Time Lords have an interest…"

"Don't worry. Remember who I am. I know how to deal with them. The Time Lords in general don't care. Only the President seems to care, and she has less power than you think. As long as we don't do too much damage, we can act with some impunity."

A grin on one face. "Oh, good. It's about time we purged those little bastards from the face of the universe. For Logopolis!"

"For the Traken Union!"

"For Pellin!"

"For the Dead of the Entropy Wave!"

"The Bloody Hammers will smash the Incubators and their pets into nothingness!"

_And_, the leader thought to himself, _a reckoning will be made. After all, we cannot allow traitors to run around unchecked. When you join the Bloody Hammers, it is for life. And when you leave us, your life is forfeit. I guarantee it, Moni…_

* * *

In a dark, cathedral-like room, a man who appeared to be in his forties, but was actually significantly older, sat in a leather chair, brooding. Long and thin of face, his blue eyes filled with fatigue and pain, he was wondering what he could do. He was dressed in a jacket he got in the trenches of the First World War.

The room was vast, like a gigantic library of some stately home, panelled in dark wood. However, while there were bookshelves and filing cabinets, the room was dominated by a large structure that enveloped a strange control console, apparently made from wood, and yet, some of the controls belied a sophistication that the old-fashioned veneer strove to conceal. In the middle of the console, a glass case contained a mechanism where two sets of glowing blue crystals continually meshed and unmeshed, in time with the distant sound of a strange, grinding howl.

The man's contemplations were disturbed (for the nth time, given his annoyed expression) by a shrill beeping from the console. Only this time, he decided to do something about it. Grunting in annoyance, he reluctantly got up from the chair and looked at the console, and then at an old-fashioned television, hanging from a spring nearby.

He frowned, and muttered, "Presidential codes?" Sighing resignedly, he activated something on the console, and turned to the screen. As an unfamiliar woman appeared on-screen, he said, "I'm sorry, but I don't accept crank calls. Please try later."

"_Doctor, you've changed._"

The Doctor frowned, and looked back at the screen. The voice was different, but the attitude was somewhat familiar. Peering at the visage, his eyes widened. Time Lords did have a certain sense for recognising their fellows, even after a regeneration. "Romana(5)," he said. "I like the new body. Shame about the old one, but you seem to get the best ones. If this is about that business with Straxus…"

"_It happened while I was regenerating. My successor…and predecessor, so to speak, was the one in charge during that whole mess_(6)," Romana said. "_Anyway, I'm calling to ask you for help on an unrelated matter._"

"I doubt it," the Doctor said. "Tell me, in one word, what you want(7). Then I'll consider it."

Romana glared. "_Doctor, we have no time for silly games…_"

"Madam President," he said, slipping deliberately into formal address, "the Agency have done nothing but play silly games with my life. And I'm sick of it. One word. Choose it carefully." He didn't like doing this to his old friend, but he didn't like having anything to do with the Time Lords in general at the moment. The last time he had spoken to Romana, she had exiled him to another universe where proper time didn't exist. Admittedly, it was to prevent him from infecting the universe with Anti-Time, but their respective parting words had hurt each other(8).

Romana gathered herself, before she said one word. "_Moni._"

The Doctor's eyes widened. "Moni…the Incubators, am I right?"

"_Yes, Doctor. They're on Earth. What's more, there's a chronic hysteresis involved. A Magical Girl is the party responsible._"

"A Magical Girl, causing a time loop?" The Doctor ran a hand through his hair. Not so long ago, it was long and wavy, but now, it was cut short. It was part of the means of coping with his recent losses.

He had only recently had to deal with problems with time, caused by the Daleks and their ally Kotris. Now, he had another one. And he knew that Romana had made the right call. The Doctor couldn't trust the Agency an inch, but while his friendship with Romana was a little shaky, she nonetheless clearly trusted him enough to know that he'd help. Especially where Moni was involved.

"All right," the Doctor said. "I'll need coordinates and what we know of the situation. Are any of the other members of the Order of Maxwell's Demon available?"

"_No. They're busy cleaning up after other messes made by the Incubators. Moni was the only one they could spare, especially with time travel experience. Can you help?_"

The Doctor smiled. It was a tired, painful thing, but there was genuine pleasure nonetheless. "Madam President, you only had to ask."

**CHAPTER 4 ANNOTATIONS**

**1\. A Leonine contract is one made under duress. An extremely simple version of one is 'your money or your life'. Mami was faced with a choice of either dying in the car crash, or else living in the arduous life of a Magical Girl.**

**2\. A reference to Patrick McGoohan's surreal spy-thriller series ****_The Prisoner_****. Moni has acquired from the Doctor an enjoyment of Earth's pop-culture.**

**3\. One of the many designations given to Earth in ****_Doctor Who_****. The first time this designation is given, if I recall correctly, is in ****_The Deadly Assassin_****. 'Mutter's Spiral' might be either the galaxy, or the spiral arm of the galaxy where Earth resides. I personally go with the latter.**

**4\. A reference to the events of ****_Dark Eyes_****, an audio drama miniseries by Big Finish.**

**5\. Lady Trey is finally revealed outright as the third (or at least a later incarnation) of the Doctor's old companion Romanadvoratrelundar, aka Romana. This incarnation of Romana, played by Juliet Landau, has appeared in both the ****_Gallifrey_**** spinoff audio drama, as well as the Companion Chronicle ****_Luna Romana_****.**

**6\. I was a bit confused as to why Romana wasn't in charge of Gallifrey during the events of ****_Dark Eyes_****. Of course, I heard that circumstances in the ****_Gallifrey_**** spinoff series could prevent it, but I decided on something a little more straightforward. I've decided, then, to set this story, and therefore ****_Dark Eyes_****, after the main ****_Gallifrey_**** series (but before ****_Gallifrey: Intervention Earth_****). I've probably screwed things up, though.**

**7\. One wonders if Madame Vastra learned this trick, used in ****_Doctor Who: The Snowmen_****, from the Doctor himself. I decided to have him use it here. He wants Romana to assure him that it is worth his time (he's in something of a bad place in this point in his life, and has a low opinion of the Time Lords at this point).**

**8\. Romana had told the Doctor that if he ever returned from the Divergent Universe, she would have to kill him to stop the spread of Anti-Time (he did, she didn't, although he was no longer infected by Anti-Time). The Doctor speculated to her face whether she would, as President of the Time Lords, follow the same megalomaniacal route as Morbius, Omega, and Borusa, two of whom he had once admired as much as he did Romana. It wasn't a pleasant parting.**


	6. Chapter 5: A Terrifying Mission

**CHAPTER 5:**

**A TERRIFYING MISSION**

Moni had been through many a situation that, for most people, would be utterly terrifying. Even leaving aside Magical Girls, Incubators, and Witches, he had faced off against Daleks, Cybermen, and the Infinite Warriors of the Eminence(1). He had fought off beings so abstract, they could hardly be said to exist at all, let alone bleed and die, and yet, he made them do both. In his fourteen years of life, he had killed, and nearly died a thousand times over.

And yet, one of the things that terrified him was going undercover to a high school on a Level 5 planet, so primitive they had only primitive space flight and nuclear fission. Where they hadn't even begun colonising any nearby planets or satellites, despite having the capability.

It wasn't the first time he had had to do so, and he never really wanted to do it again. Unfortunately, to achieve his goal, it would be better to observe some of the important players in this perverse tragedy, as well as covertly begin disrupting the plans of Kyubey. Homura was his partner in crime, and they had decided to plan a means to allow him to ingratiate himself with Madoka and Sayaka and divert them away from the path leading them down the road of being a Magical Girl.

One common time that Madoka and Sayaka met Kyubey was at a shopping mall when a Witch attacked. A few times, Homura used that opportunity to try and kill Kyubey, only to drive Madoka to help it. Moni, after discussing things with Homura, decided to use that. She would try to kill Kyubey, and he would help stop her, as part of a bluff to help convince Kyubey, for the moment, that Moni was on its side.

Of course, that meant going to school to observe them. Moni hated that. His civilisation had mastered Block Transfer Computation, and while they kept to themselves, they were far more advanced than humans were at this point. Which meant that Moni had to be careful not to correct the worst of the contradictions in these people's knowledge, and try to…_socialise_.

He shuddered. He wasn't good at socialising, and with good reason. His psyche was a mess after what happened in his childhood. In many ways, he was far older than many of these students. And in many ways, he was far more immature. He was better at socialising with older people, and often people who were _centuries_ older than him. In fact, that probably helped. Moni felt isolated, and who better to understand isolation than those who lived for centuries, and watched others who lived mere decades wither and die? The Doctor was a particular comfort in this regard. He had watched travelling companions come and go, and some even die.

But he would need to socialise enough for the mission. He needed to do something in contrast to Homura's by-now ingrained aloofness.

A bit of fiddling with the school records and bureaucracy ensured that he was listed as a transfer student from Logos High School in the UK. His story was that he was a British-born part-Japanese whose guardians had moved back to Japan. There wasn't any such school, but a perception filter on the applications made sure that nobody would question it. If need be, he knew some of the Doctor's old contacts in the UK to vouch for him, like some from UNIT.

So, for this mission, he was Moni Knight(2), and it was under this name that he introduced himself to the class, rather nervously, not long after Homura had introduced herself in her cool manner. And it was here that he saw Madoka Kaname and Sayaka Miki for the first time.

Madoka looked younger than she was, with distinctive pink hair in pony tails, and a seemingly perpetually cheerful disposition. Sayaka had blue hair, cut short, and while not as childish-looking as Madoka, still had a cheerful nature to her. The two looked to be good friends, but Moni knew that, in some of the timelines, that went badly.

He sat down near them, and the two of them began pelting him with questions about the school he went to. After all, he wasn't just a transfer student, but also from another country. He could only imagine the attention he would receive if he let slip he was from another world. He had spent time on Earth before, and particularly in Britain, so he was able to answer the questions with some confidence. But he also noticed how Madoka's eyes kept flickering to Homura, like she nearly recognised her.

_Déjà vu_, Moni realised. Sometimes, those caught within a time loop retained vestiges of memory of what came before, and Madoka, according to Homura, was at the very nexus of the loop. Sometimes, those who were important within time-loops saw memories of past iterations in dreams. The amount of papers published on how memory was affected by time travel was ludicrous, even those not written by the Time Lords, but Moni knew enough.

He couldn't do much more before he was forced to turn to the subject matter at hand: maths. Bread and butter to a Logopolitian, true, but they were really only at basic algebra. He could use math to literally reshape the world if he wanted to, by a few mental calculations.

In fact, to amuse himself while they went over this child's play, he used Block Transfer Computation a few times to do a few things. The first was to weaken the structural integrity of the chalk the teacher was using, so it crumbled to dust in their hands. He then did the same to the teacher's pen, currently held in a shirt pocket, so that ink stained said shirt. Amusing, and, dry cleaning bill aside, harmless. One had to take the small amusements where one could get them…

He noted how Homura did very well in her subjects. And he knew that between classes, she had spoken to Madoka. Time would tell what that would do…

* * *

There was a scary moment where Madoka and Sayaka invited him to eat an early dinner with them after school. He did so, a bit anxiously, wondering why. Hopefully, just idle curiosity. He was a transfer student, after all, and from another country. If only they knew how far afield he had come from. They went to a nearby mall, as they wanted to do some shopping. Moni reckoned this was the same mall as the one where Madoka and Sayaka met Kyubey for the first time.

Sure enough, he was pelted with all sorts of questions, mostly from Sayaka. She seemed to be the more extroverted of the two, whereas Madoka was a bit more shy. He answered them as best as he could. He'd already answered some back at the classroom.

And then Madoka asked, hesitantly, "Do you know Homura?"

Ah, so that was it. Madoka was curious about Homura. If there really was a touch of temporally-induced _déjà vu_, then it stood to reason that she'd be curious.

"Homura Akemi? Well, I've met her before," he admitted, having discussed a cover story to cover any familiarity. "I got into an accident when I first arrived in Mitakihara(3). We met in hospital. She's…nice, but she's a bit of…what's the term you use? A _kuudere_(4). She's a bit distant, a bit cold. Don't try to force her to be friends with you. A bit like me, but I'm just a bit…unused to friends."

"You don't seem like a _kuudere_," Sayaka said.

"No, but…I'm a bit unused to dealing with people. My parents died when I was young, and my guardians, well, they meant well, but often left me to my own devices. I'm a bit of a _hikikomori_, sometimes(5)."

"You don't look like one," Sayaka said. "You seem too nice to be one."

"Well…thanks." He ran his hand through his hair sheepishly.

"She said something strange," Madoka said. "She said I shouldn't change who I was, no matter what."

Moni chuckled ruefully. "Well, people change, all the time. It's a fact of life. Hell, it's even a fact of physics. The Second Law of Thermodynamics. Entropy, which is to say disorder, will always increase in a closed system. It's what defines the direction of time." Not to mention an important concept when dealing with Incubators.

"Wow, you're so smart," Sayaka said. "I mean, we saw you work out those maths problems, and you're as good as Homura."

"Well, I like to read a lot. I read that book by that Stephen Hawking guy, _A Brief History of Time_. It's pretty good if you want to know the basics of interesting physics."

"Yeah, well, you're cool. But Homura…she's a bit loopy, isn't she?"

"Eccentric is what we'd say back in England," Moni said. "I've met weirder."

"Well…" Madoka said uncertainly, "it's like I've met her before. You're gonna think I'm weird, but I thought I saw her before…in a dream."

Ah, so there it was. Echoes of the future entering Madoka's dreams. Sayaka laughed, but Moni merely smiled. "Oh, come on, Moni, do you believe her?"

"Pretty weird stuff has happened in England, stuff I have seen. Besides which, _déjà vu_ is a noted phenomenon. And you could have met her before, or at least seen her before, but just forgot where." Which wasn't far from the truth, technically.

* * *

They had gone to an electronics store when Madoka heard something through headphones while listening to music. Moni didn't hear anything, nor did Sayaka, but he guessed he knew what it was. Madoka was following the voice of the Incubator, and it could call out to potential Magical Girl candidates. He followed the two girls, as he knew from what Homura had told him that this place may very well become a Witch's den very soon, and if things got really ugly, he might need to protect them.

Of course, that would blow his cover, but he'd rather do that, and have to deal with the Incubators afterwards, rather than let these two girls die. Of course, Mami, according to Homura's intel, would probably show up in time to save them.

They went into a part of the centre that was being renovated, darkened and decrepit. Almost immediately, his instincts were screaming at him. A Witch was definitely lurking somewhere deep within, and her influence was growing. Or its influence. For all the fact that Witches were often created from Magical Girls, or else from the Familiars, they shed gender, along with any trappings of humanity, when they transformed.

He grabbed a pipe along the way. Alone, it wouldn't be much more protection than his bare hands. But he smiled to himself when he remembered an anecdote the Doctor told him about a baseball bat, a Gallifreyan superweapon, and a Dalek(6).

_BTC: Hand of Omega_, he thought to himself, putting the bare minimum of power into the computation. Within seconds, the pipe began to hum, imperceptibly, filled with power. Unlike Ace's baseball bat, which had been supercharged with electricity from the surrounding air, this construct was considerably more sophisticated, only harming anyone he wanted to harm with it. In other words, Madoka, Sayaka, or Homura wouldn't be hurt by the special properties of the pipe. Said special properties being that, on impact, it would briefly act as if the pipe was made of Dwarf-Star Alloy: very dense, and capable of warping space and time. He wouldn't feel it getting any heavier, but any Familiar or Witch that got hit would be hurting. It was all he could do not to grin like a shark approaching prey. The conditioning he had received hadn't completely worn off, after all.

They soon found their quarry, the Incubator being pursued by Homura. Moni played his part to perfection, as the surprised and horrified onlooker, while Madoka cradled the injured Incubator. Sayaka then distracted and blinded Homura with a blast from a fire extinguisher. The girl showed surprising resourcefulness, it seemed. Moni found himself liking her, despite Homura's contempt. To be a Magical Girl candidate, one still had to be above the norm in terms of resourcefulness and will.

He fled with the two girls and the Incubator, suppressing the urge to finish what Homura started. But he couldn't blow his cover yet. Though given the familiar feeling in the air, he knew a Witch was about to transform this part of the shopping centre into its demesne. They were wondering why Homura was suddenly in cosplay. _If only they knew_, he thought to himself.

And then, it happened. Strange images filled the air, like living hallucinations. Images of butterflies and cards and strange, abstract patterns. The world took on the air of some bizarre artist's collage of images, disjointed and unreal. They lost their way swiftly in the ensuing blur of images.

"Crap," Moni muttered. "Girls, we're in trouble."

"What's the matter?" Madoka asked. "What's going on? Why is all this weird stuff happening?"

"I know why it's happening," Moni admitted. "We need to find an exit as soon as possible. Because otherwise, we're dead. This place has become a Witch's realm."

"A what?" Sayaka demanded. "Did you say Witch?"

"Yeah. But…we're not talking pointy hats and broomsticks. We're talking about the sort of thing HP Lovecraft would write about," Moni said.

"Who's HP Lovecraft?" Madoka asked.

Suddenly, they were surrounded by what seemed to be living vines of barbed wire, writhing and snaking through the air. Scissors snipped at the air threateningly. Around them, what looked like living balls of cotton wool with moustaches babbled and chanted strange words and syllables.

"Familiars," Moni spat. "Entities created by Witches, and very lethal."

"You don't need to tell me that!" Sayaka yelped, looking at the scissors snapping in their direction. "How do you know these things?"

"Long story. Stay close," Moni said.

Suddenly, chains fell from the ceiling, surrounding them in a circle, which then flared with warm red and yellow light. _Just in time_, Moni thought. _At least I shouldn't have to reveal myself yet_.

"Well, looks like I got here in time," came the voice of Mami Tomoe. The teenager, still in her school uniform, seemed surprised to see Moni, who gave her a friendly wave.

"Who are you?" Madoka asked.

"Mami Tomoe. Moni there has met me, but you two go to Mitakihara Middle School too, right? Eighth graders?" As the Familiars began attacking the barriers, she sighed. "Please excuse me, but introductions may have to wait. Would you mind if I cleaned up?"

"Not at all," Moni said. It would be interesting to see Mami in action. Especially now that he had upgraded her Soul Gem.

Mami took her Soul Gem in hand, and began transforming, her school costume turning into her Magical Girl costume. She leapt into the air, and summoned a large number of massive flintlock weapons, which promptly annihilated the Familiars in a hail of gunfire. Normal guns, of course, would do sod-all against them. But these were magical constructs, or, to put it a touch more scientifically, block-transfer synthesised and enhanced weapons of sheer, Witch and Familiar-annihilating _awesome_.

Shortly after the Familiars disintegrated under the hail of bullets, the Witch's realm dissolved away. But Homura made an appearance, with Mami issuing a subtle but distinctive warning: don't go after Kyubey again. Moni struggled not to roll his eyes. Even the Doctor would not be able to stop Homura from going after Kyubey. Homura merely glared at Mami, before meeting the gazes of Madoka and Moni. With the slightest of nods to Moni, she left.

Afterwards, as Mami healed Kyubey, she said, "I'm glad you intervened in time. Kyubey's a good friend of mine."

Moni once more had to suppress a roll of the eyes. The Incubators considered friendship to be merely useful leverage. An Incubator, friends with a Magical Girl? Even a farmer was more likely to be friends with the cattle he had to sell to the abattoir. "Thanks for the save, Mami," he said out loud. "It's been a long time since I got caught in a Witch's realm."

"How do you two know each other?" Sayaka asked.

"We only met by accident," Mami confessed. "He ran into me, and helped me find my Soul Gem when I dropped it. I'll tell you about that later."

Kyubey chose that moment to revive. "Oh, thanks, Mami! I was afraid that I had breathed my last."

For the third time in as many minutes, Moni tried not to roll his eyes. If the Incubator's body died, it could synthesize a new one readily.

"Well, I had a little help, Kyubey. These three intervened."

Kyubey looked at them all. "Is this the boy you met before?" it asked Mami.

"Yes. Moni Knight," Moni said, holding out a hand for the Incubator to shake, before pretending to realise his mistake, and using it instead to rub the back of his head sheepishly. When it wanted to, the Incubator could speak and appear directly to anyone it wanted, so he could hear its telepathic words.

"And this is Madoka Kaname, and Sayaka Miki," Kyubey said.

"You know our names? You were the one who was calling out to me!" Madoka said.

"Of course. I was seeking you out, you see. I wanted to ask a favour. I want to ask you to make a contract with me," Kyubey said, adding to its smile by closing its eyes in a smile. "And become Magical Girls."

_And here it is_, Moni thought. _This is the true beginning. This is where we must begin to steer Madoka and Sayaka away from this path_.

He was determined to make this iteration of the time loop the last one. No matter what. And he knew that Homura wanted the same…

**CHAPTER 5 ANNOTATIONS:**

**Jeez, I didn't know whether I'd ever finish this chapter (I had to hurriedly re-watch the end of the first episode of ****_Puella Magi Madoka Magica_**** to get the feel and the rough gist of the dialogue right). I've been concentrating so much on my other fanfics and other pursuits, this one fell by the wayside. It's definitely a lower-priority fanfic than my other works, even ****_In Spite of Obstinate Men_****, which remains paradoxically one of my most popular fanfics, even though my work on it is relatively slow.**

**This was one of the first fanfics I had attempted to write as well, and it shows, another reason why I was reluctant to come back to it. That being said, I might contribute more chapters in the future. My other fanfics take a priority.**

**If you're wondering where the narrative will truly diverge from ****_Puella Magi Madoka Magica_**** canon, then it will diverge massively starting from the end of episode three. However, there's still a lot of relatively small divergences before then.**

**For ****_Doctor Who_**** fans, I'm seriously considering a crossover between ****_Doctor Who_**** and ****_BioShock Infinite_****. As with this story, I'm not using a new series Doctor, but a classic series Doctor, with the Seventh, my personal favourite, being the main contender for the Doctor who will appear in that story.**

**Quick review-answering for ****Innocnt Bystandr****: Nice to see you are interested. As for the Incubators' talk of entropy being technobabble, keep in mind that ****_Doctor Who_**** is full of worse technobabble throughout its history. I mean, 'reverse the polarity of the neutron flow'. Really? Also, I'm finding it a bit hard to understand what you mean when you said my 'narration stopped'.**

**1\. The Infinite Warriors and their leader, the gaseous entity known as the Eminence, are a key adversary in the Big Finish ****_Doctor Who_**** audios, making their debut in ****_The Seeds of War_****, having an origin story in ****_Destroy the Infinite_****, and playing the role of a major adversary in all but one of the ****_Dark Eyes_**** boxsets, with their origins being revealed in the last boxset of the tetraology. The Infinite are basically zombies controlled by the gaseous Eminence.**

**2\. Named partly in honour of Captain Knight, an ill-fated soldier in the recently mostly-rediscovered ****_Doctor Who_**** story ****_The Web of Fear_****.**

**3\. I'm pretty sure this is the name of the city ****_Puella Magi Madoka Magica_**** is set in.**

**4\. Means outwardly cold, but inwardly caring. Roughly. I'm speaking for the Whovian audience who may not have heard some anime terms. Moni is lying somewhat: Homura does care about little else than Madoka, but I think given time, Homura will warm up a bit more.**

**5\. Again, a translation for those unfamiliar with Japanese terms. Basically a shut-in or extreme recluse. Moni is really commenting on his lack of ability to socialise with people his age, rather than on a lack of ability to socialise in general, so the term is misused a little. But he is also covering for himself, in case he does anything strange.**

**6\. For further details, watch ****_Doctor Who: Remembrance of the Daleks_****. The baseball bat in question was enhanced by the Hand of Omega, a Gallifreyan stellar manipulator that was also a potent weapon, and Ace used it to beat up a Dalek, and damage another one. You can see a screenshot of part of that scene in my current avatar.**


	7. Chapter 6: The Doctor, The Magical Girl,

**CHAPTER 6:**

**THE DOCTOR, THE MAGICAL GIRL, AND THE POLICE BOX**

Down darkened streets Homura strode. The die had been cast. She had put her trust into a near-stranger to try and help her steer Madoka away from the path that would lead her to become a Magical Girl.

While Homura had resolved to stop this herself, the truth was, she was desperate to stop it. Weariness was the small but noticeable canker within her resolve, her will to finish this. And truth be told, it was refreshing to be able to speak to someone who was as resolved to halt the process as she was.

But what was Moni's true stake in the matter? He was hiding something, she knew. She realised that there was darkness in his eyes, far more than he should have had if he was the last of his kind. If anything, he seemed to have darkness in his eyes worse than her own, and she knew his pain couldn't possibly be any worse than her own.

She made it back to her apartment. It had ceased being a home long ago, and now served mostly as a base of operations. Her parents had died in the same accident that had put her into hospital, so long a time ago (thanks to the time loops). So she didn't expect anyone there, or anything out of place.

The fact that there was a blue telephone booth with English lettering and a man currently making cups of tea in her kitchen was therefore, and understandably, something of a surprise.

"Sorry for intruding," the man said, almost completely unfazed (save for a roll of the eyes) when Homura extracted a gun and pointed it at his head. "Unfortunately, I needed a good patch of temporal flux in order to land without detection. Rather like coming ashore in a rubber dinghy when it's misty. Given that you're at the nexus of a time loop, it seems I chose the right place. You must be Homura Akemi. I am the Doctor. And I believe that you know my friend Moni."

"How do you know Moni?"

"He may have mentioned the role I inadvertently played in the downfall of his people, when I brought the Master to his world," the Doctor said. "I was hoping he'd be with you: I made three cups of tea. By the way, would you mind putting your gun away? The last time I regenerated, it was because I got shot, and then a surgeon got creative in trying to cure what she thought was a heart condition. She didn't realise I had two of them…"

Homura studied the man more closely. He seemed to be in his forties, of European descent, with a long, thin face that was handsome, but marred by stubble and weariness. Pale blue eyes looked at her, while short brown hair adorned his head. He was dressed in a leather jacket. "You look like a human."

"And you look like a Time Lord," the Doctor pointed out. "Romana sent me, or you might know her as Lady Trey?"

Homura knew who he meant. It didn't mean that she trusted him, though she lowered her gun. "No tricks."

"Homura Akemi, I am full of tricks. I think you should say that I should direct them onto the enemy, namely the Incubators and the Witches."

"Then this thing is yours?" she asked, approaching the blue booth. She frowned. It said 'police box' in English, but it didn't look much like the ones she was used to(1). "This isn't a police box."

"No, though the disguise comes from a British version of police box used in the 50s. It got stuck after I spent some time in the year 1963. But in reality, it is a time machine, a TARDIS. Time And Relative Dimensions In Space(2)." He put the tea cups expertly onto a tray, and said, "Would you mind opening the doors? We'll have a talk inside."

Homura bit off a protest. She very nearly said that it would be impossible for them to do so, until she realised that, if his civilisation was sophisticated enough to create a time machine, then it would solve something like storage space. Not only that, but she had a lot of weaponry to take care of him, should he try anything. So she opened the doors, and the Doctor, with a grateful smile, carefully edged inside.

While she had begun to expect a massive space inside, Homura was certainly not expecting the massive, cathedral-like space, all panelled in dark wood. In the centre, surrounded and supported by a metal framework, was a six-sided control console with antiquated-looking switches and readouts. In the centre of the console was a glass cylinder, with blue crystals within. Dotted around the massive chamber, there were clocks, bookshelves, a small garden, filing cabinets, and even some comfortable chairs around a table, where the Doctor put the tea down.

Homura couldn't help it. An expression of awe and wonder came upon her face, an expression that hadn't been there for an eternity. "_This_ is a time machine?" she whispered.

"Yes. Well, aren't you going to say it's bigger on the inside than the outside?"

"…It's rather obvious, isn't it?"

"Hmm. You're one of the few people who has said that," the Doctor said. "The first was a good friend of mine by the name of Sergeant Benton(3). Of course, at the time, I was still going for a variation of the standard TARDIS desktop. This is one of the alternatives. A bit pretentious, but it's home."

"What about your homeworld?"

"Gallifrey? I don't consider it home. Not anymore. I consider Earth to be my home now more than Gallifrey, though truth be told, the TARDIS is home." The Doctor indicated the seat across from the one he was now sitting down in, and Homura, despite her qualms, did so. "And if you think this is impressive, then consider this: this TARDIS is actually one of the oldest models. When I borrowed her, she was destined for the scrapyards."

"She?" And then, Homura realised that she could feel an ambience coming from all around, like something's attention was on her. "This time machine…is alive?"

"Very much so." He looked up at the ceiling. "She's also rather accepting of you. Which is strange, because you are a living paradox, Homura. The last time she dealt with someone who was a living paradox, she didn't like it(4). Maybe she's become a little more accepting." As he sipped from his teacup, he said, "You and Madoka are the nexuses of a chronic hysteresis, a time loop, one that is becoming dangerously unstable, beginning to spread decay into the surrounding fabric of space and time. You've brought the attention of my people, the Time Lords, onto you. Moni has been sent here to stop the loop from recurring, and I've decided to help, for if the loop isn't halted, the Time Lords may decide to take drastic measures. They may decide to erase you, Madoka, the Incubator, and any Magical Girls present from existence. It's their most extreme measure, true, but I wouldn't put it past them one bit."

The bitterness in his tone was noticeable. "You don't like your people much, do you?"

"I fled from Gallifrey in the first place out of boredom. I grew angry at their apathy towards using their powers to help. And I detest how when they do use their powers, it is out of sheer self-interest," the Doctor said. "Romana is my friend, and I have many on Gallifrey. But I don't like many of the people in power and authority there, or their attitude to what they would call 'lesser races'."

For a time, Homura was silent. Being in the TARDIS was soothing, soothing in a way that she hadn't felt before, or at least not for ages. Eventually, she asked, "How did you meet Moni?"

The Doctor looked at her, and seemed to debate with himself as to what to say next. Eventually, he said, "Moni has been through a lot, Homura. I'm not sure I'm the one who should be telling you this. Moni should be."

"And he hasn't. I want to trust him, but if he's not forthcoming about his past…"

"I understand. But before I tell you, I want to emphasise here and now that he is your best chance of stopping the time loop and preventing things from getting worse. He has a good heart." The Doctor looked pensive, before admitting, "But he also has a lot of blood on his hands. The blood of Magical Girls, like you."

Homura couldn't help it. Her eyes widened in shock. "…What?" she whispered.

"Moni wasn't born in any conventional sense of the term, Homura, nor was he genetically engineered. He was actually engineered from the base blocks of matter, using a process called Block Transfer Computation, the very same process that gives you your so-called magical powers."

Homura nodded. "He told me about Block Transfer Computation. He uses it himself. He told me about how his people used it, before they were wiped out."

"Of course. Only a few members of the population of Logopolis survived the entropy wave, being off-planet at the time. They were also fanatics, who had banded together with other fanatics to try and stop the Incubators. However, the fall of Logopolis and other worlds destroyed by the entropy wave pushed them over the edge into eternal darkness. They were determined to have their revenge on the Incubators, as well as wipe any trace of their operations from the face of the universe. They called themselves the Bloody Hammers, as a reference to the infamous record of witch persecutions in Europe, the _Malleus Maleficarum_, or the Hammer of the Witches. They saw themselves as righteous crusaders, purging the universe of the Incubators, and of the Witches, not caring that there were other ways to help the Magical Girls. For you see, they make it their duty to murder any Magical Girl they come across, lest they become a Witch."

"And they created him…to be a soldier. Am I right?" Homura asked.

The Doctor nodded. "What better weapon against Magical Girls and Witches than a being with the same powers as they had: Block Transfer Computation, the ability to use mathematics to shape the very fabric of space and time? They made him a mental chameleon, able to blend into any culture in the cosmos, in order to infiltrate and kill. He would befriend Magical Girls, and then murder them. He was to be their Monitor, a term once given to the leader of Logopolis, but now a weapon designed to monitor Magical Girls, and destroy them. He never had a childhood. Murder and subterfuge was his playtime. He had no personality to call his own until he was twelve. Just a blank slate, at first. A child soldier, created from birth to hate and kill, like a Dalek."

"…So what happened?"

"Simple. He actually became a friend with a Magical Girl. A Dulcian, to be precise, by the name of Tolata, who was fighting the Dominators' fleet as well as Witches. The personality he had been given had stuck fast, and the result of twelve years of brainwashing began to wear away. He began to question his purpose, his own morality…and I was there to help. You see, it was my fault the Dominators were attacking Dulkis in the first place: I forgot that, on my last visit, the two Dominators who were there were preparing Dulkis to be used as fuel for their fleet, by turning it into radioactive slag(5). So I was trying to stop the Dominators from finishing what those first two tried to start. Tolata perished saving Moni's life, even knowing he was one of the Bloody Hammers, even knowing that he was their greatest weapon." The Doctor sipped from his tea pensively, before saying, "Moni was distraught, and when I offered him a place on the TARDIS, he agreed. This was after I lost C'rizz and Charley left me, and before Lucie…but never mind about that(6)."

"…What of this 'Order of Maxwell's Demon' he belongs to?"

"A splinter group from the Bloody Hammers. They got disgusted with the extremist methods of the Bloody Hammers, and recognised that Magical Girls were as much victims of the Incubators as those killed by the entropy wave," the Doctor said. "The Order still destroys Incubators and Witches, but tries to help the Magical Girls where possible. It is also, unofficially, backed by some of the Time Lords. I know that the Corsair(7) is a frequent member. Moni joined them, but only after I helped deprogram him extensively. Even now, his psyche is badly damaged. You may have noticed that he has mood swings, even seems to change personality to a degree. He doesn't suffer from actual split personalities, but he is still struggling to form his own identity. It's been years since I've seen him last, thanks to time travel. But even so…when Romana told me Moni needed help, I listened. Even though I've been more than a little…apathetic of late."

Homura looked at the Doctor. Right now, she could believe that he was hundreds of years old. "So…does this mean I can trust him?"

"To do what he can to save everyone, including yourself? Yes. And I will endeavour to do the same, Homura. But first, I need to know everything I can about this time loop, about Madoka, about the Incubators' presence here…and about Walpurgis Nacht."

Homura looked at the Time Lord. "Do you promise to make sure this ends?"

"Yes." A simple word. But spoken with conviction. Complete and utter conviction. And that was what kindled an alien emotion in Homura's breast. It was conviction that she had felt when she had committed, with Moni, to make this loop the last one. But now, knowing Moni's stake in this, as well as a commitment from the Doctor to help, enkindled but the faintest embers of a terrible emotion that had been unfamiliar to Homura for the longest time.

Hope.

**CHAPTER 6 ANNOTATIONS:**

**And another chapter down. I nearly wrote one where Moni is present with Kyubey when he discusses the nature of the Magical Girl contract with Madoka and Sayaka, but this concept for a chapter appealed to me more. At long last, we have the story of Moni's past.**

**I've been listening to ****_Magia_**** by Kalafina a lot lately. Maybe it's a sign…**

**Review-answering time! I've already answered ****Rhettbutler**** in correspondence, but here's my replies to his queries. I do tend to like the classic Doctors more than the new Doctors, though this is because I was a fan of Doctor Who long before the new series came out. Also, I've noticed that the new series Doctors rather than the classic series Doctors tend to be used in fanfic, so I am using the classic Doctors as something of an antidote to that.**

**In addition, I didn't have the Eleventh Doctor in mind when I wrote Moni, though it's an intriguing thought. (The following, by the way, is copied and pasted from the PM) It's a possibility that sometimes, Time Lord pattern their regenerations off people they have met or seen (which would explain why the Sixth Doctor looks like the Time Lord Commander Maxil from "Arc of Infinity", or why the Twelfth Doctor resembles Caecilus from "The Fires of Pompeii" or John Frobisher from "Torchwood: Children of Earth"). Maybe Moni looks a bit like an albino teenaged version of Matt Smith (the Logopolitians were albinos, or near enough).**

**1\. The Japanese have police boxes, or at least installations that are frequently called police boxes in Japanese. These are called ****_kouban_****, and are actually more like mini-police stations than telephone booths.**

**2\. I think the explanation for the TARDIS acronym 'Time And Relative Dimensions In Space' is a more sensible term than 'Time And Relative Dimension In Space'. By 'relative dimensions', I assume it means all dimensions in space.**

**3\. Sergeant Benton, one of UNIT's most stalwart personnel, actually said this in ****_Doctor Who: The Three Doctors_****. Very little could faze Benton, and he was very loyal to the Doctor.**

**4\. Referring to Charlotte 'Charley' Pollard, one of the Eighth Doctor's companions from the Big Finish audios. She was rescued from an airship crash that she was meant to die in, and was thus a living paradox that the TARDIS didn't like, though that was the least of the Doctor's and Charley's worries. Of course, the TARDIS didn't react well to a later living paradox companion: Clara…**

**5\. The two Dominators and their plans to turn Dulkis into radioactive fuel for their spacecraft appeared in ****_Doctor Who: The Dominators_****. Tolata was the name of a Dulcian woman who was murdered by the Dominators' robot minions, the Quarks, but I presume there may have been other Dulcians with that name. Obviously, the second Tolata, the Dominator's full-scale invasion, and the involvement of Moni and the Eighth Doctor happened at a later time.**

**6\. When C'rizz, a chameleonic alien with an unstable personality, died, the Doctor's attitude to the death alienated Charley. Although the Doctor believed Charley to leave of her own free will, Charley was actually stranded, believing the Eighth Doctor to be dead. She was thus very surprised to be picked up by the Sixth Doctor. Long story there. Lucie Miller was a later companion of the Eighth Doctor's, but her death (along with others) traumatised the Doctor. Given his experience with C'rizz and Charley, the Doctor was clearly a bit more compassionate to Moni, who, in some regards (and I've only just realised this, while writing this annotation) is very much like C'rizz.**

**7\. A renegade Time Lord (and a friend of the Doctor's) mentioned in the new series episode ****_The Doctor's Wife_****, although he is also mentioned in passing in the novelisation of ****_Shada_****.**


	8. Chapter 7: Lies and Secrets

**CHAPTER 7:**

**LIES AND SECRETS**

"So, how is it that you know about Magical Girls, Moni?"

Moni suppressed a wince. They were currently in Mami Tomoe's apartment, with Madoka and Sayaka being given the whole 'make a contract' spiel. As the girls contemplated this, and Moni drank from a glass of water at a kitchen benchtop, the damned Incubator had hopped up onto said kitchen bench, and asked him this question. Not unreasonably, given his earlier lie to Mami. Better wing it.

"Back in Britain, there was a girl I used to know at school. We were, for a time, friends. But then, she became a Magical Girl, and, well, we had a bit of an argument. I was worried she was going to get herself killed, and unfortunately, I used the wrong words, drove her away," Moni lied. "Even before then, I was used to weird shit. My father is in UNIT."

"UNIT?" Madoka asked.

Sayaka frowned. "Hey, isn't that the United Nations black ops organisation?"

"Well, not quite black ops. The United Nations Intelligence Taskforce(1) is nominally an investigation and protection taskforce that looks into novel threats to humanity, as well as guarding key installations and events like secret research facilities, peace conferences, that sort of thing. Normally, I'd be in violation of the Official Secrets Act for saying this, or whatever the equivalent is in Japan, but, well, you've just encountered things that would fall under UNIT's jurisdiction." Moni's eyes flickered over to Kyubey. "UNIT was formed to monitor alien activity…and if necessary, repulse alien aggression."

"Wait, what?" Sayaka yelped. "Are you telling me UNIT fights aliens?"

"Yes. They were particularly active during the early Seventies(2). My father had a lot of anecdotes from that time. Keep in mind, not all aliens are bad by any means. Earth just seems to attract the evil ones. That being said, Dad used to tell me about one alien who was UNIT's scientific advisor, and its greatest helper against invasion. He went under the name of Doctor John Smith, but he was generally called 'the Doctor'." Moni was delighted to see the Incubator twitch, ever-so-slightly, at the mention of the Doctor. "I've only met a couple of aliens in my time," he lied. "Kyubey's the latest one."

"So you're an alien?" Madoka asked Kyubey with awe.

"Of course. I never said I wasn't," Kyubey said with utter equanimity. No trace of haughtiness or condescension or annoyance was in the damned thing's cheerful tone. "My people's mission is to empower Magical Girls in order to wipe out the Witches and their Familiars, throughout the cosmos. Witches are beings which are pure negative emotion embodied, beings which, to our regret, we created by accident."

Moni had to applaud the damned thing. It danced around the truth with a good story. That being said, he knew it was, for once, lying more or less outright with two key factors. Firstly, they did not create Witches by accident: as far as he knew, they knew what the side effects of creating Magical Girls were from the offset. Which led to the second lie: they didn't regret their actions one jot. "So, you're basically creating child soldiers to clean up your mistakes?"

"Magical Girls are the best-suited people to fighting Witches and their Familiars," Kyubey said, once more with damnable equanimity. "The process required to create one is not as optimal on post-adolescent women, or on boys and men. We regret our creation, inadvertent as it was, of the Witches. That is why we are doing everything in our power to rid the cosmos of them. And Earth has an especial surplus of them."

_Not when compared to Skaro when you got your grubby little paws on that world_, Moni thought. Given that it was a war-torn world, with the Daleks being almost the utter embodiment of negative emotion and the Thals scarred psychologically by the conflict between their ingrained pacifism (a philosophy they had only adopted after the very war they had been active participants in, the war that led to the rise of the Daleks) and their need to fight for survival against the Daleks, it was not surprising that some of the most vicious and powerful Witches Moni had to face were there.

Out loud, he said, "Okay, so you're one of the good guys, or trying to be. That's good. Otherwise I would've contacted UNIT. I'm an orphan now, but I still have contacts. And I don't want to be party to an alien infiltration, at least not a malevolent one. That being said, why was Homura attacking you?" He asked this to distract the Incubator from the possibility that he and Homura were in alliance.

"I don't know. I don't recall ever making a contract with her, although she was clearly a Magical Girl. She seems to have taken umbrage with me, though."

"If she's willing to talk, I'll see if I can get it out of her," Moni said. "You're too cute to be beaten up like that."

The words all but made him want to puke copiously, but they had the desired effect. Kyubey closed his eyes and tilted his head in a way that made him seem like he was smiling even more than his perpetual, damnable smile already did. "Thank you, Moni. While it would be impossible for me to grant you the powers of a Magical Girl, feel free to accompany us. I suggest bringing something along to protect yourself, though. You seem to know that Familiars and Witches are dangerous."

_True_, Moni contemplated as Kyubey trotted back over to Mami, Madoka and Sayaka. _But I know the real reason. You may not suspect me to be anything other than what I am…but if my death or severe injury means that Madoka and Sayaka make a contract, then you win, you furry little piece of shit. Two can play at that game, though_.

He'd have to keep an eye out from now on. They were approaching the time when Mami, in some timelines, would have a potentially fatal encounter with a Witch. An encounter that could potentially drive either Madoka or Sayaka into becoming Magical Girls. He had promised Homura that that wouldn't happen, that this iteration of the time loop would be the last. And he also intended, despite Homura believing it to be a bad idea, that Sayaka and Mami would not perish this time around.

* * *

The Doctor frowned as he examined readouts in the TARDIS, Homura watching on. Her descriptions of the various Witches, as well as events that had remained more or less constant throughout her loops, had been analysed by the Doctor, and she had (with only slight unwillingness) consented to being scanned.

Homura also allowed him to scan a hair of Madoka's she had, as a keepsake of sorts(3), in order to trace her biodata. Biodata, apparently, was a sort of semi-biological essence that not only was unique to an individual, but also could be analysed to discern their tracks through time(4). The Doctor, when he had analysed Homura's biodata, had looked to her in horror, and had told her exactly how many times she had travelled through time(5). Homura wasn't at all surprised. She had lost count long ago.

There was both an awe-filled respect, and an extreme sorrow in the way the Doctor treated her after he learned of this. Nothing like pity, but a genuine feeling of sympathy, even empathy, with the girl who looked fourteen, but who was many years older.

The Doctor returned to the analysis of Madoka's biodata, and when it finished, he frowned. "This can't be right," he murmured. "This is impossible…the time loop shouldn't do something like this."

"What's wrong?"

"I know you said that Madoka's Witch form seemed to increase in power as the loops progressed, but…" The Doctor was staring at a readout, before punching a few keys on a keyboard, and then gesturing Homura over. "This is a readout of artron energy. It's the principle fuel behind your magic, or rather, the Block Transfer Computations that masquerade as magic. Think of it like 'ki' or 'chi', though it's somewhat more complex than that."

Homura came over, and looked at what appeared to be a graph. Six bars were present. One was fairly small, while the two on the end were fairly big.

The Doctor pointed to the first bar. "That's the standard amount of artron energy in humans." He pointed to the second one. "Time Lords." The third one, about double the amount of the Time Lord graph. "Magical Girls, albeit a mean with a lot of deviation." The fourth one, much higher than the third. "You, Homura." The fifth one was, according to the numerical value, hundreds of times greater than her. He pointed to the last one next, though. "The TARDIS." Finally, he pointed to the fifth bar. "And that, right there, is Madoka Kaname. She has almost as much artron energy within her as a TARDIS."

Homura's eyes widened. Eventually, in a quiet voice, she asked, "…How much power are we talking here?"

"I've honestly no idea," the Doctor admitted. "Your power, should it be unleashed as a Witch, would be worlds-destroying. As in, you could probably wipe out all life in this galaxy within a few decades. The only reason why you haven't got as much power as Madoka, I suspect, is that you are expending much of it on preventing yourself from becoming a Witch. This sort of positive feedback loop on artron energy is not unheard of in actual travellers of a time loop, like you are. But for Madoka to get it…unless…some part of her is going back with you. You said she was the Magical Girl when you first met her. Maybe she had some small ability to transfer herself back in time with you, if only in spirit."

"Madoka seems to remember me vaguely at times, having dreams of me."

"_Déjà vu_ isn't unheard of, even in those who aren't main participants in a time loop. But this could be something more. Maybe your powers, with your conscious desire to save Madoka, have preserved fragments of her mind, memories, and power, her soul if you will. And it gives them to her as you return to the start of each loop. The upshot is, I'm guessing Madoka is at least at the level of an Eternal."

"An Eternal?"

"Abstract beings of immense power, who can shape matter and thought, though they have little emotion and no morality, rather like the Incubators, except more powerful and very prone to boredom. You'd mistake them as gods. One of the times I met them, they did a boat race across the Solar System(6)." The Doctor looked at the readout with a disturbed expression on his face. "For the Incubators, Madoka is the motherlode. Once they realise exactly how much potential she has, they'll do anything to get her into their grasp, because the artron reserves will translate into massive gains for their entropy reversal project. Even the risk of her becoming a Witch that could potentially destroy the stars with a thought would be worth it: they know how to protect themselves from Witches, as long as they run away quickly enough. They claim to be acting in the best interests of the universe, but they are only interested in preserving themselves."

"So, how do we stop them?"

"Honestly? I have no idea." The Doctor gave a grim smile. "But these are the sort of situations I excel in. No weapons, no defences, and no plan. And that scares my enemies to death(7). On the enemies' side, we have the Incubators and the Witches, and at least two Magical Girls who are currently on the Incubators' side. On our side, we have at least one Magical Girl, which is to say you, and a teenager with similar powers, which is Moni. Oh, and you have me and the TARDIS, and everything that lies within. The Incubators will be scared once they learn that. A Magical Girl opposing them, even one like you? They don't care. A member of the Bloody Hammers, or an ex-member? An annoyance. But combined with me…" The Doctor turned to Homura, his smile turning a little grimmer. "Well, the Daleks call me _Ka Faraq Gatri_, which translates variously to 'the Destroyer of Worlds' or 'the Oncoming Storm'(8). We will fight the Incubators, and we will win."

Homura heard the grim determination in the Doctor's voice. And now, having learnt for sure about Madoka's potential, she was even more determined than ever to save her friend's life.

"Now, I think I know where to start, if nothing else," the Doctor mused. "Tell me, Homura, which hospital did Kyousuke Kamijou was at again?"

**CHAPTER 7 ANNOTATIONS:**

**Moni and Kyubey are feeling each other out, trying to catch the other out in deception, while the Doctor discovers Madoka's terrifying potential.**

**Now, reading up on ****_PMMM: Rebellion_****, I noted one of Homura's flaws is that she doesn't like asking for help, that her self-reliance ultimately leads to her downfall. Here, I'm trying to correct that: Moni and the Doctor giving their help regardless will hopefully change Homura for the better. Also, I had been considering a Homura/Moni ship for this story, but I decided to leave it as Homura/Madoka, given the ending I have (very vaguely) planned out for this story. But I do have a ship in mind for Moni that occurred to me on a whim.**

**This fic has finally gone over a thousand views! Finally! Yay! It's the first non-****_Borderlands_****, Harry Potter, or ****_Naruto_**** fanfic of mine to do so.**

**Review-answering time! ****Rhettbutler****: You'll have to wait and see regarding the fate of the girls, though this will be a somewhat happier story than mainstream ****_Puella Magi Madoka Magica_****. And yes, the others WILL meet the Doctor, albeit not under the best of circumstances.**

**1\. I prefer the old acronym, and this is supposed to be set before that change. From at least ****_The Sontaran Stratagem_**** onwards, UNIT stands for UNified Intelligence Taskforce, as apparently the UN had some sort of issue with the original acronym after its use in ****_Aliens of London/World War Three_**** in the first season of the new series.**

**2\. There's considerable debate as to when the UNIT stories are set, especially given contradictory dialogue (namely Sarah Jane Smith claiming that she's from 1980 in ****_Pyramids of Mars_****, despite the Brigadier being retired from UNIT by 1977 according to ****_Mawdryn Undead_****). I'm going with the UNIT stories being set more or less in the years they were done, and ignoring the dialogue contradicting that.**

**3\. Okay, probably not canon, but it wouldn't be out of character for Homura, given how, frankly, she's almost like a creepy time-travelling stalker, albeit with a decent heart.**

**4\. Biodata is mentioned in passing in the TV series in ****_The Deadly Assassin_**** and ****_Arc of Infinity_**** (in the latter, the Doctor's biodata is vital for Omega's plan to get a body of his own). In the novels, particularly those of Lawrence Miles, biodata became 'temporal DNA', which, if altered, could alter a person's very past. This concept continued in Lawrence Miles' spinoff series ****_Faction Paradox_****, and it is this concept that I am using here in this story, allowing the Doctor to track Madoka, as well as find out what interests the Incubators in her. And also find out more about Homura.**

**5\. I think there've been fanon speculations as to how many loops Homura has undergone, but nothing concrete, AFAIK, has been said in canon. One estimate I saw on TV Tropes put the amount of time (relatively speaking) Homura has spent trying to save Madoka as at least 12 years.**

**6\. The Eternals were introduced in ****_Enlightenment_****, and that boat race did indeed happen in that story, believe it or not.**

**7\. A paraphrasing of lines from ****_Bad Wolf_****. The Daleks, when the Doctor tells them he will defeat them, claim he has no weapons, no defences, and no plan. The Doctor replies "Yes. And doesn't that scare you to death?"**

**8\. '****_Ka Faraq Gatri_****' as a Dalek sobriquet for the Doctor was introduced in Ben Aaronovitch's novelisation of his ****_Doctor Who_**** story ****_Remembrance of the Daleks_****, but used in many of the novels, as well as a couple of the audio stories. It's usually translated to 'the Destroyer of Worlds', but I'd like to think that it can also mean 'the Oncoming Storm', which was, according to the novel ****_Love and War_****, what the Draconians (a people the Doctor has actually been on usually good terms with, being made a noble of Draconia) called the Doctor.**


End file.
